1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to method for preventing lane departure for use in a vehicle, and more particularly, to a method for preventing lane departure for use in a vehicle, which can prevent a driver from leaving his/her current traveling lane by a simplified logic.
2. Background Art
Generally, an Advanced Safety vehicle (ASV) is a high-tech vehicle that utilizes high-tech electronics and control technology in order to improve safety of a vehicle, which reduces traffic accidents, save energy, and promote driver's convenience.
A Lane Departure Warning System (hereinafter, referred to as “LDWS”), which is one of ASVs, is a safety equipment for a vehicle, which detects a lane the vehicle is currently traveling by sensing an image in all directions from a camera attached to the vehicle, and then produces a warning signal if the vehicle is about to leave the lane due to the driver's carelessness or dozing off at the wheel.
The LDWS includes a lane detection device for determining whether the vehicle is moving out of the lane by analyzing an image signal of the front of the vehicle and a warning device for warning the driver if the vehicle is moving out of the lane as a result of analysis of the LDWS.
The LDWS of this type is a system suitable for drivers in the countries where the transport network of roads is well-provided and vehicle industry is developed, especially, truck drivers and long-distance commuters, who are exposed to the risk of lane departure accidents due to fatigue from long-time driving, carelessness, and dozing off at the wheel.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional method for preventing lane departure for use in a vehicle.
As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional LDWS includes an image sensor for receiving front and rear traveling images, an image processor for performing image processing to recognize lane markings, a departure determining unit for determining whether a vehicle is moving out of the lane on the basis of the recognized lane markings, an interface input unit for receiving a vehicle interface signal, and an interface output unit for issuing a lane departure warning and showing a lane departure situation.
Herein, the vehicle interface is composed of various variables such as a lane width, the curvature radius of the lane, a lane crossing time, and so on.
Here, the image sensor recognizes lane markings on a road by using a single camera mounted at the center between the front and the rear ends of the vehicle, and detects the degree of difference between the center of the recognized lane markings and the optical axis of the camera, thus issuing a lane departure warning.
However, this method has problems in that (i) as various variables are used, the logic becomes complicated and (ii) the accuracy is low because a lot of noises, such as a defect in the sensor, distortion of a camera lens and so on, are included which cause errors in image coordinates and real coordinates.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.